Keep Sleeping
by AngelWing1138
Summary: He hated sleeping because he saw the things he'd rather never see. [Sorikuish, kind of like a future thing where Riku and Sora are from a different world and Kingdom Hearts was a dream.][Oneshot]


A/N: Inspired by the picture 'Keep Sleeping' by 'rubyd' on DeviantArt. Go see her Gallery. NOW. It's so pretty.

Anyhow, I was in a slightly angst/comfort mood, and so this was born! Riku, because he is like...The Emo Lord.  
Vincent is the Emo King.  
Sasuke is the Emo Prince.  
Cloud the Emo Princess (I had to. XD).  
And that's all I can think of! Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this! I was listening to 'Goodbye My Lover' by James Blunt as I wrote this as well; nice song, I suggest you listen to it.

Look, I'm advertising! XD  
Anyhow! Enjoy. And review, if you could be so kind. I want feedback.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts (II) belongs to Square Enix.

* * *

He always had hated going to bed when he was young.

Bed was something he had never enjoyed; it took him away from his play time and made him do nothing for 8 hours, just lying in a bed with your eyes closed. He had never seen what was so amazing about it; though his older brother, a teenager, seemed to live off of it. This is why he found his brother a little boring whenever he woke up, but after a few hours, he was fun again.

As he grew older, he grew to dislike sleeping more; staying up hours on end until he just passed out at his work desk or on the couch, the TV's luminescent lights lighting his face, making him look paler. His parents had given up on him, deciding he could do what he had wanted; after they decided this they had gotten a divorce because conflict was happening much too much, and he went with his mom, his brother staying with his father.

Whenever he got visits to his dad's place, it was always quiet because his father would be sleeping. This fact made him hate going to bed even more; it took away his father and made him miss the visits. He hung around his brother, Sephiroth a lot, but usually he'd be talking about his newest game or the new kid at the college. Riku didn't really care, just blandly listening as he sat at the table.

Whenever he was at home with his mom, things were livelier. His mom loved to try and make the meals professional cooks made on the television, following the instructions and keeping the fire extinguisher close; and sometimes Riku would help her, laughing as her eggs enflamed, and they had to eat black eggs after that.

When he had started high school, Riku got little less than four hours of sleep a night; he had deep bags under his eyes and his skin seemed paler, but he was one of the most sought out bachelors in his school and the guy every sports team wanted. He hung around another sports kid named Sora, who had a large appetite and fell asleep during History class all the time at the same time; he also hung around a sweet girl named Kairi who seemed to try being an artist, just to be different, but had eventually turned out to be the cheerleading captain after the old one had graduated a year after Kairi had joined.

Whenever Sora spent the night at his house, they would stay up, playing video games and eating pizza that his mother would order because she didn't want to scare off her son's friend away with her horrible cooking habits; though Sora knew them from the stories Riku told him and Kairi, so it didn't really bother him. Then Sora would fall asleep on the couch, curled up like some sort of cat or dog, and Riku would just watch him for hours until the lights of dawn came shining and he finally fell asleep, only to be woken up three hours later by Sora, who would say he was hungry.

He hated sleeping because it took away time from his life; took his father away and made his brother boring. But these were cover stories he always told his friends when they learned of his odd sleeping habits; he stated he learned to dislike sleeping at a young age and had kept to the habit.

But the truth was, was that Riku had strange dreams; dreams that haunted him each and every night ever since he was small. He didn't understand what the dreams meant, because he never saw much of them, but whenever he woke up he was crying, a cold sweat beaded on his face.

He sighed softly as he looked out the window, Sora sleeping on the floor of his room like a rock; he had only fallen asleep an hour ago and already the drool was starting. He yawned behind his hand, sighing softly, before he lied down; just because looking out the window was getting boring. He stared up at the roof for a long time, looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars Sora, Kairi and he had stuck to his roof a few months back so that he'd have something interesting to look at during his sleepless nights. They formed the constellations; Kairi loved the stars, and she had decided that she should put some of her influence into Riku's room, since Sora's influence was everywhere in the shape of left behind shirts and a silver crown necklace that he used to wear all the time, but had given Riku as a birthday present.

He sighed, looking at the Big Dipper quietly, never noticing his eyes slowly drooping closed until he was shrouded in darkness.

Riku feared the darkness.

An image filled the darkness; one he had seen one too many times for his liking. It was a dark street with bright, fluorescent buildings of bright blues, yellows and greens. The buildings were black, though, with these bright colours mixed into them somehow; making a clash of light and dark. He would be in front of a large building, standing in front of a split grand staircase with a black blindfold in his hands; wearing a black cloak with a hood, his face much older than it actually was.

A strange weapon would be in his hand—_Keyblade _kept ringing in his ear whenever the dream he would lift it and look at it quietly. It was black, sort of gothic in its style; it resembled a key greatly; the name Keyblade seemed to fit it that way.

And then, small, black creatures with bright yellow eyes and claws would sprout from the ground, and they would circle around him, climbing up his legs; scratching the skin, making it bleed. He would knock them off with the Keyblade, and they would disappear into smoke.

And then the scene would change, but he had never gotten farther than that. Except for tonight.

He looked around the unfamiliar landscape as he stood in a bright white room, his hand pressed up against the glass of a clear, egg shaped container. A blindfold was over his eyes, so he couldn't physically see what was inside; but his mind's eyes painted him a faded, blurry picture that he could sort of see.

Inside was a familiar looking boy, wearing bright colours; blue, red, yellow, white. He floated inside of the egg with his eyes closed; brown hair wild and sticking up at odd intervals. His face was in a peaceful expression, as if accepting some sort of fate which he had no control over.

Riku knew he knew the boy well; he was a close friend, his heart was telling him. Though he couldn't think of his name; couldn't think of any time he had spent time with him, any significant moments, he _knew _he knew him well. And the fact that he couldn't even think of his name drove him to the brink of insanity.

He then dropped his hand, turning, and walking away from the whiteness of the room into the darkness that he feared; its cold arms caressing his skin in a mock-soothing manner. When he left the darkness, he was in different clothing and he was younger; a young boy around 13 or 14 maybe. He watched as the beach around him was slowly being sucked away into a black hole, before he turned to look at the boy from the egg standing there, smiling at him.

"Riku!" He called out happily, waving; he recognized that voice so well… "Hey, come over here! Isn't that AWESOME? It's like a tear through the sky! Maybe if we go in it, we can go into different worlds, huh? Isn't that what we always wanted, Riku?" The boy blinked, his blue eyes wide and innocent. "Riku…? What's the matter? Say something! Say my name!"

His name? But he couldn't think of his name…He heard it vaguely in the back of his mind…S…..So…..

"Riku!" His voice was shrill now; Riku turned to look at him being engulfed in the darkness he just walked through. "Riku help me! Help me!"

He tried to move forward, but his feet were stuck. And suddenly he was older again, back in the black cloak and now in a completely different place all together. The boy was looking at himself in fear as the darkness crawled over his skin, gripping him, most probably freezing him to the core. Riku stood there, blindfold to the ground; stood there helplessly as he couldn't move, watching as the boy he knew he knew was swallowed by the darkness. And suddenly his eyes turned bright yellow, and he had sharp claws like those creatures in the city; his position turned sinister and he crouched down like a wild man, one hand on the ground while the other was strained in a way to show his vicious claws; black smoke emitting from his body.

"No!" He shouted, his eyes wide as tears filled them, the tears falling. "No no no no no! This can't have happened! I don't want to see this anymore! I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU LIKE THIS! SO—"

"—RA!" He shouted, bolting up into a sitting position on his bed; tears running freely down his cheeks as he panted, cold sweat running down his back, his pajama shirt sticking to the skin. He put his head in his hand, crying softly, trying to get over the image of the dream he had just seen. "No…Sora…No why…"

"Mm…Riku?" A groggy voice filled the room, and Riku turned his bight green eyes to him, silver hair limp as he looked at Sora; the identical image to the nameless boy in his dreams. But that boy did have a name…He was Sora… "Riku…You're crying…?"

Riku turned away from him, lifting his knees and burying his face into them, his shoulders shaking; he couldn't stop crying. The image of seeing his best friend…Of seeing someone that he loved so dearly, turning into something so _hideous_…He just couldn't bear it…

His bed creaked as another weight joined his, and he felt thin, warm arms wrap around his chest from behind, a forehead resting in between his shoulders. He lifted his head slowly, looking back at Sora who looked up at him at the same time with a small, comforting smile, before he turned, gripping onto the boy like he was a lifeline, his face burying into the smaller boy's neck.

Sora held him, softly humming an old song he used to know as a child to try and calm the shaking boy in his arms, rubbing his back in a soothing manner. "What's wrong?" He whispered gently, after a few minutes of silence.

"…I had a nightmare." He whispered softly. "It was so strange…Like I had lived all of that…But it was so surreal…" Sora nodded, placing a soft kiss to Riku's temple; the boy closed his eyes at the soothing contact, and slowly he started to calm from the horrors of his dream. "I don't sleep…Because I don't want to see it."

"So the truth comes out…" Sora whispered, looking grim, before he smiled softly. "Riku; if you ever have a nightmare, and I'm not here, I want you to call my house, okay? My mom won't mind, I promise."

"But…You'll be sleeping…" Sora shrugged, and Riku pulled back to see his friend's kind face looking at him. Sora leaned forward, gently kissing his forehead, and Riku closed his eyes, smiling softly; it felt so nice to be at Sora's attention and affection.

"I don't care; I care about you, Riku. I care about you a lot, and if I have to loose some sleep just to make sure you're okay, then so be it." He then rubbed his arm quietly. "Want me to sleep with you tonight? As in, in the bed?" He asked, smirking at him slyly. Riku shoved him, before he scooted over to make some room for him, and Sora snuggled down into the blankets. Riku hesitantly laid down after him, turning to face him, only to find Sora's back to him. He sighed softly, wrapping an arm around Sora's waist, and bringing him closer so that they spooned. Sora smiled, snuggling into his warmth, before he fell asleep again, and Riku heard his soft snoring perfectly.

He then smiled a little, closing his eyes as he buried his face into Sora's hair, and sighed softly. He didn't go back to sleep that night, but he felt like he had slept the entire time.

Sora woke up the next morning demanding breakfast as he always did, and Kairi came over, bursting into the room to see her two favourite boys playing video games in only their boxers; having been in the midst of changing. She laughed, shaking her head, before they all got into a pillow fight, in which Kairi initiated and lost because Sora and Riku had teamed up; the dream from the night before forgotten.

Riku might've not liked sleeping because those dreams came to him, and he couldn't stop them. But if he was in the presence of those he loved, he supposed he could live with the dreams, but only once in a while.


End file.
